My GMU Econ and Mercatus Center colleague Larry White takes on my Mercatus Center colleague Scott Sumner on the merits of the gold standard (or, more generally, more free-market monetary systems) compared to merits of fiat money.
I’m no specialist in monetary theory, but my assessment of Larry’s and Scott’s interesting conversation is that Larry has the better argument. (I must say that I’ve never understood why the state any more should control the supply of money than it should control the supply of wheat or of steel or of rubber bands. That is, I’ve never seen any reason why money cannot be and should not be supplied privately.)
